Cellular telephones, office telephones, and even home telephones may now include a mute button. When the mute button is depressed the phone stops transmitting audio from the user or surrounding noise. Mute functionality allows listening parties to prevent sounds from being transmitted from the phone. A user may press mute in order to have a quick conversation with another person in the room that the user does not want sent over the phone call. In conference calls with many participants, the aggregate noise of rustling papers or keyboards can interrupt the current speaker.
The muted audio is not received by any other parties on the conference call. However, in some scenarios the muted audio may still be processed by the telephone. If the telephone is compromised, the muted audio could be obtained by an unauthorized party using malicious software.